


For Reel

by starsnow



Category: American Vandal (TV)
Genre: Enemies(one sided) to Lovers, Film Production AU? It's definitely an AU, Former Disney Channel Star Sam, M/M, Production Assistant Peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 16:39:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17666219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsnow/pseuds/starsnow
Summary: Peter couldn’t believe he was officially a production assistant for the summer before his first semester in film school.Then Sam Ecklund shows up on set. Disney Channel Star Sam Ecklund. Basically Peter's worst enemy.





	For Reel

Peter still couldn’t believe he was on an actual movie set right now. After months of negotiating with his mom, convincing his cousin to let him crash on her couch and a lucky connection from his aunt’ s new boyfriend, he was officially a production assistant for the summer before his first semester in film school. He’s barely getting paid, working ridiculous hours and mainly doing menial tasks, but he’s going to see his name fly by in the credits of a real Hollywood movie soon. It’s basically a dream come true.

He had just finished handing out some copies of today’s schedule out to two of the camera operators when one of the assistant producers called him over.  “Hey Pete, we’ve  got a new actor coming to set today and I’m going to tell him you’re his go to guy if he needs anything. So you’re going to need to stick around set while he’s here. We’ll give you other shit to do, but he’ll be your main priority.”

This is so cool. He’s actually going to get to work with one of the actors. And this guy must be pretty big if that’s going to be Peter’s main job for today. It’s not like he took this job so he could meet celebrities, but it was one of the perks.  He tried to be chill nodding, “Got it, Dave.”

“He’s right over there,” Dave turned and gestured across the set.

No fucking way. He couldn’t believe his eyes. The person he had to be at the beck and call of for the rest of today was Sam fucking Ecklund, Disney channel star Sam fucking Ecklund. Basically his worst fucking enemy.

Maybe Peter had overestimated how serious this movie was. Nothing Sam Ecklund was in could ever be good. He’s an over the top, bad actor who thinks he’s way funnier than he actually is. Peter just can’t get over how he ruined what was the best show on Disney Channel. His really annoying character practically took over the show after the first season. Then after the third season, his character got his own spin off that ran for longer than the original show. During that same time he also starred in not one but two DCOMs. Peter kept googling him hoping he would get to see his fall from relevance or maybe he’d be one of those cute kids that turned into an ugly teen, but no luck on either count. He just got bigger and better and apparently now he’s even getting roles outside of Disney somehow.

He knew this was not going to be easy for him, but he had to do his job. So he took a deep breath as he walked over to introduce himself, “Hi I’m Peter Maldonado, production assistant, let me know if you need anything.”

Sam reached out to shake his hand and flashed him his thousand watt smile, “Thanks man, its Sam Ecklund, nice to meet you.”

As Peter shook his hand he felt his professional face drop for a second. It was a combination of the memory of that smile ruining season two and facing the fact that the first famous person he shook hands will forever be Sam Ecklund. Sam gave him a confused look, so Peter decided he better bail now before he made it any worse. “Nice to meet you too, I’ll be over there if you need me.”

So far Sam wasn’t horrible. His requests had been pretty reasonable, getting a highlighter he could use to mark up his script, filling up his water bottle when it was empty. He was able to focus more on helping out with the crew. But still every time he glanced up at Sam from whatever job he was doing he still felt that rush of loathing.  Probably the only way Sam could get rid of it was if he offered to fund one of Peter’s film ideas.

Peter was untangling some cables when he heard the sound of Sam clearing his throat behind him. Really? He couldn’t just be polite and say excuse me like a normal person.

Peter turned around, “Hi Sam, what’s up?”

“I need some throat lozenges.”

“Okay I’ll ask around and-“

“Wait I use uh organic ginger honey ones that you can only get…well… Where’s your phone?” It was sitting on the table next to the extra sound equipment. Before Peter had a chance to reach for it, he grabbed it and thrust it out towards Peter, “Unlock it.”

Peter tried to resist rolling his eyes as he pressed his thumb against the home button. He knew Sam’s good behavior could only last so long.

“I’m pretty sure this is the only place that has my brand,” Sam said as he typed into Peter’s phone. He turned it around to show Peter.

 Peter groaned, “That’s an hour and half away!” There was no way he was going to drive all that-

 “You don’t want me to lose my voice do you?” Sam smirked.

And Peter was scowling for the whole three hour trip. And once he got back it hit him that Sam hadn’t said a word in any of his scenes today. So far it looks like half of this movie is about Sam’s character’s mother having a conversation with someone has Sam’s character flips through a comic book in the background.

After Peter handed Sam the throat lozenges that were apparently used to soothe carpal tunnel, Dave called him over, “Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Sam sent me to the other side of LA.” Peter said, not even trying to hide the disdain from his voice.

“Really Peter? You can’t use Sam’s requests as excuses to goof off.”

“I wasn’t he insisted on—“

“Then use you common sense Peter. You could have consulted me if any of his requests seemed unreasonable”

“I guess, “ Peter said dejectedly.

“Okay this is clearly not working, go meet with Samantha about organizing props for tomorrow. I’ll get Madison to take over for you.”

Peter felt like an idiot. Of course he should have consulted someone higher up before spending 3 hours of his day on fucking lozenges. He shuffled down the hall toward Samantha’s office. This morning he was dreading the parts of his job that took him away from the camera, but at this point anything would be better than spending another moment in the same room as Sam fucking Ecklund.

It was the next day and Peter was sitting out on a picnic bench eating lunch with Randal, another PA, when he heard Madison shout towards them, “Guess who’s tired of hanging out with the adults?” Peter slowly turned around. He had a bad feeling of who would be following Madison to their table.

Sam took one look at him and slowed down, “If I’m not wanted here-“

Madison nudged him, “Don’t be scared of Peter’s resting bitch face. And besides you won’t find anyone else under 20 on this whole lot.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that” Sam said half sarcastically as he put down his lunch. Clearly ignoring Peter he turned to Randall “I’m Sam, Nice to meet you”

Randall stood up and frantically started shaking Sam’s hand, “Of course I know who you are! You’re Chuckie! He was literally the most hilarious Disney channel character ever. ”

Surprisingly Sam didn’t seem thrilled at the mention of his iconic character. But that wouldn’t make sense. Of course he loved the attention; he probably just thought he was too cool to talk to Randall. But to his credit he didn’t get mad at Randall or anything. He casually fielded the many questions Randall had about the show and, as much as it makes Peter want to claw his ears off, Sam managed to make his old catchphrase “What a projection!” still sound vaguely funny even if he wasn’t a precocious eleven year old anymore. Thankfully after the catchphrase, Madison managed to steer the conversation far away from anything Disney related.

To be fair, lunch wasn’t as terrible as he thought it was going to be.  He was pretty sure it was just the collective fun of talking with Madison and Randal outweighed the awfulness of talking to Sam. But when they were talking about film making, which is how they spend most of their lunches, Sam did have some interesting perspectives from the other side of the camera. Probably the same that most somewhat experienced actors have. No way has Sam actually spent time thinking about how the director’s management style affects the actors’ performances.

Peter was only able to suppress his strong dislike of Sam for the length of his lunch break. Any other interactions that day were just short, professional conversions and maybe a few dirty looks thrown in Sam’s direction when he wasn’t looking. He spent nearly a decade hating this boy; a few clever comments at lunch weren’t enough to reverse that.

Early the next morning Peter was delivering the updated prop list to one of the assistant producers when they called quiet on the set. Great, he was stuck there until the end of the scene. He still had a lot of props to finish sorting and judging by the fact it was only him and the actor playing his mother on set, Sam had a speaking role today. Peter was finally going to see him act outside of the Disney channel. 

He preemptively started to cringe at how Sam’s bad acting was going to ruin the movie, when the mom let out a distressing cry. As Sam’s character comforted his mom, the subtle mixture of anguish and determination on Sam’s face got to Peter. He didn’t know the context for this scene, but he could tell Sam’s character struggled with having the strength to care for his mother in these circumstances. He wanted to do anything he could to try to help his mother, but also felt like she should be taking care of him more than he was taking care of her. There wasn’t even any dialogue, but Peter felt like he knew so much about Sam’s character. He barely registered the director yelling cut.

Shit, Sam could actually act. He was fucking talented. How was Peter supposed to feel about that?  

Someone one took all the fucking signs off the fucking trailers. How was Peter supposed find Dave’s trailer to meet Madison for lunch? Instead was going to spend his whole lunch break trying to hype himself up to open a trailer door. He managed to convince himself that if this wasn’t Dave’s trailer and he opened the door there would be someone naked on the other side who would immediately fire him.

 He had tried knocking, but no one answered.  It must be empty. He’s going to open the door and feel stupid for awkwardly standing outside an empty trailer for five minutes. So he went for it but instead of an empty room, he saw Sam lounging on a couch watching an episode of Gilmore Girls. Of course it would be Sam of all people. In his embarrassment he managed to mumble, “Shit, sorry man, wrong trailer.” At least Sam wasn’t changing.

He was about to close the door, when he heard Sam casually ask, “Why do you hate me?”

Peter froze in the door way. Sam’s clearly trying to provoke him. He should just walk away, but Peter finds himself closing the door behind him and walking over to Sam, “Maybe I’d like you more if you didn’t send me to the other side of LA the first day I met you to buy you some fake organic crap that I’ve seen in the Walgreens across the street.”

 “I know you hated me before that. The main reason I sent you there because I was tired of you giving me death glares for no reason. It was getting distracting,” Sam said, still half watching the show.

“Fine you really want to know the reason?” Peter said wearily as he dropped down on the couch next to Sam.

“No wait, let me guess,” Sam powered off the TV and turned towards Peter, “You hate everything that comes out of Disney Channel because it will never be pretentious enough for you.”

“Ha! That shows how little you know about me,” Peter said smugly, ”High School Musical 2 makes my top 50 movies of all time.”

“Of course you have a top 50 movie lists.” Sam’s exasperated look was suddenly replaced by realization, “You loved the first season of For Reel, no kid likes the first season of For Reel. “

Like a reflex Peter jumped to the show’s defense, “It was the most smartly written season of a Disney Channel show ever. Some of the early meta references are better than a lot of TV for adults. The Some Like it Hot episode could have won an Emmy. ”

“See most of the eight year olds watching Disney Channel don’t care about _smartly written meta references_ , they just want to laugh at fart jokes. You’re telling me you knew Some Like It Hot when you were like ten?”

“My mom’s a real classic film buff. We would watch it all the time when I was young.”

“Okay fine, but you can’t seriously have understood the Dutch angle episode. That was a lot of actual film theory jargon.”

“My elementary school library had a surprisingly extensive selection of books about film mak- wait a second, how do you know about the jargon in Dutch Angle episode? I know you weren’t in it, because I rewatched it last month.”

Sam was caught off guard, “I may have… um… watched the full first season a couple of years ago.”

“Why would you watch it if no one likes it?” Peter was glad to turn the tables on Sam.

“I said no kids like it. Sixteen year olds who actually understand most of the film references are another story. I was with one of the show’s writers, talking about how much I like the last few episodes of the final season of For Reel. He told me if I liked them I should watch the first season. And I finally did and well I really liked it.”

Peter was sort of freaking out. He had never met anyone IRL who had watched the first season recently. If it was anyone other than Chuckie himself, he would be bombarding them with questions about which episode was their favorite and which of the episodes’  styles worked best, but the only question he had for Sam was, “You had never seen any of the first season, the even episodes you were in?”

“Yeah, I don’t really like watching my own stuff until I’m a few years removed from it. Until I feel like I’m more of a separate person, not really watching myself I guess.”

“I get that. As soon as I post one of my videos to Youtube I know if I watch it I’ll just see a bunch of parts I want to change.  I hate knowing that the people see all the problems too. ”

“How many views do you usually get on Youtube?”

“Around 200 for my good stuff. My best one so far is almost at 1,000…” Sam chuckled at the numbers. “I guess it would feel even worse if it was like a million people seeing all my mistakes.”

“Don’t forget all my puberty. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch Lucky for Chuckie. The step down in writing plus a ton of awkward stage me is too much.”

“I can’t imagine having fifteen year old me broadcasted around the world.”

“Sadly, I think my TV career so far really peaked at the finale of For Reel.”

“Sounds about right, though I’d probably move the peak to the last episode of Season  1” Peter teased.

“You should really give the end of Season 3 a shot”

“I don’t know…”

“Listen, the show was ending so they had more freedom. It’s so much more like the first season. We could watch the last four episodes sometime. I’d give you all the behind the scenes scoops.”

Was Sam asking to hang out? That would be weird, just him and Sam watching something together. He couldn’t do that. “Well unfortunately after season 2 episode 3. I vowed to never watch anything with you in it ever again. I sacrificed 5 whole episodes of season 1.”

“If you keep that up I guess you’re going to become the first PA to never watch a movie he helped to make,” Sam said with a smirk.

Sam did have a point and he kind of didn’t want to miss out on seeing the rest of Sam’s performance…“Damn it. I just realized I technically broke it, by being forced to watch you act when I’m trapped on set.”

“I don’t know if me sitting in the background really counts.”

Peter didn’t realize Sam hadn’t seen him earlier today.  “I uh saw the scene.  With you-I mean your character- comforting his mom after a break up I think.”

“Oh you saw that, “ Sam lost his usual confidence, “I hope it was okay. I’m used to people laughing if I’m doing a good job. Here, they just yell cut when they want you to stop. The director and producers are telling me I’m doing well, but they’re probably just being nice. They probably only hired me to attract a younger audience.” He seemed so nervous, looking off to the side.

Without thinking Peter reached out and put his hand on Sam’s shoulder, “Sam, You were really good. Like seriously moving.”

“Really?” Sam said turn to look at him.

“Your performance really spoke to me. You were really going beyond what a lot of actors can do, especially one our age. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were nominated for something.”

For half a moment they sat in silence, Peter’s compliments hanging in the air.

“Well I guess I have to take that at face value. You since, you know,” Sam grinned slightly, “You hate me.”

“You did ruin my favorite show.”

“I was ten, how was that my fault?”

“Well maybe if you were less charming, they wouldn’t have decided to make you the lead.”

“You think I’m charming?” Sam said softly.

Oh shit he did. Everything about Chuckie was awful, everything about Sam on the other hand…

Sam reaches to put a hand on Peter’s wrist. He didn’t realize his hand was still on Sam’s shoulder. “To tell you the truth, your death glares weren’t the only part of your face that was distracting me that first day.”

Are they flirting? Is he really spending his lunch break flirting with Sam? Of course now that he realizes what’s going his brain short circuits and he loses all his conversation skills. “You too.  I mean, your face is distracting too.”

“Thanks” Sam laughs and sadly takes his hand off Peter’s wrist so he removes his hand from Sam’s shoulder. “Could I have your number?” Sam asks as he takes his phone out. Peter’s surprised at how anxious he looks.

Peter takes it and starts typing it in, “Are you sure you don’t just want the address of my favorite taqueria? I’ve already driven across LA for you and since you’ve already used up half my lunch break...”

 “Oh shit sorry. No pressure on the number or anything, if you just-“

Peter gave him his phone back and was thrilled at the grin that spread across Sam’s face when he saw his number and at the change of expression when he saw his name, “Wait, did you put the address of the taco place as your last name?”

Sam jumped up and put on a flowery baseball cap and some shades. “Sam” Peter laughed “Where are you going?”

“I have two hours until I have to be on set. I’m getting you those fucking tacos.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading everyone!!!


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